Up Next

Barcelona Terror attack: Aussies injured

Barcelona Terror attack: Aussies injured

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has confirmed three Australians have been hurt when a van mowed people down in a popular tourist spot, killing more than a dozen people and injuring around one hundred more.

Up Next

Journalist discusses Bannon's rogue interview

Journalist discusses Bannon's rogue interview

In an interview with The American Prospect, Steve Bannon said there's no military solution to North Korea and described the white supremacist movement as "a collection of clowns." The journalist who spoke with him talked about their chat.

Chicago detectives investigate the scene where a number of people, including a three-year-old child, were shot in a city park on the south side of Chicago. Photo: AP

''I didn't hear no sounds'' from the child, he said.

The attack took place about about 10.15pm on Thursday and fire officials initiated an emergency plan, sending at least 10 ambulances to the scene.

Advertisement

Julian Harris told the Chicago Sun-Times that dreadlocked men fired at him from a grey sedan before turning towards Cornell Square Park and firing at people in the area. He said his three-year-old nephew was wounded in the cheek.

You will now receive updates fromBreaking News Alert

Breaking News Alert

''They hit the light pole next to me, but I ducked down and ran into the house,'' he said.

''They've been coming round here looking for people to shoot every night, just gang-banging stuff.

''It's what they do.'' Chicago has become the murder capital of the US. The city registered more murders than any other US community in 2012, surpassing New York for the first time, despite having a population a third of the size.

There were 500 murders in Chicago last year, up from 431 in 2011, according to crime statistics released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. During the same 12 months, murders in New York fell from 515 to 419.

Residents of neither city are as likely to be victims as in Detroit, however, where 386 people were murdered last year.

That is one for every 1832 locals, meaning a resident of Detroit is three times as likely to be murdered as one in Chicago.

Most violent crime in Chicago is focused on predominantly African-American and deprived neighbourhoods of the city's South Side, where street gangs wage violent turf wars and there is a proliferation of stolen guns.

The dangers were all too clear on the first day back at school last month as parents and escorts walked their children alongside specially-designated ''safe passage'' corridors.

The program was started in 2009 following the killing of a 16-year-old boy after he left his South Side high school. Rahm Emanuel, the city's mayor and Mr Obama's former chief of staff, has ramped it up significantly this year.